


Borrowed Cities

by suburbanlegend



Series: cities 'verse [1]
Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, M/M, they're on summer vacation and frank visits gerard in new york, this was mostly an excuse to make them as soft as possible, though there is a touch of angst at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 09:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suburbanlegend/pseuds/suburbanlegend
Summary: We’d spent enough childhood sleepovers sharing twin beds. We could pretend sharing your double bed was exactly the same as it had always been.It wasn’t.But it was only for the summer.





	1. July

* * *

It was only for the summer. We knew that from the start. I think that was really the whole point of it; just a summer fling that wasn't supposed to mean much. I was supposed to be staying in New York City with my uncle for the summer, you lived there full time. The plan (according to our parents anyway) was that we would meet up a couple of times, childhood friends getting together for old times' sake. In the fall, I'd go back to New Jersey for college, my freshman year at Rutgers, and you'd finish your last year at SVA. That art school always terrified me, just a little, with all those beautiful, misunderstood minds that could make a masterpiece out of anything; for once in your life you fit in perfectly.

I was so out of place when I got to that city. My uncle had to work the day I arrived, and when I stepped off the train from Hoboken, I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to catch a taxi or find my way to his little place in Little Italy. But you were standing on the platform, holding up a sign with my name on it and wearing a smile so bright the sun envied you from behind clouds of exhaust fumes.

You held my hand on the subway to your tiny studio apartment in The Village and we got plenty of stares for it, but all I could think about was that I was here, with you.

I called my uncle from your place, explaining that you and I were going to have lunch together, to catch up. We spent the day together instead, and you were just as amazing as I'd remembered you being.

By the time I realized I was supposed to go to my uncle's house, it was so late it was already early the next morning. You said that it would be rude to wake him up by calling for his address (which I had conveniently lost) and that if I stayed over we could get an earlier start on seeing the city, and you wanted to show me MoMA before the tourist rush.

Your apartment was too small for any semblance of a spare bedroom and your couch was too short and uncomfortable for anyone to spend the night on. We decided that we'd spent enough childhood sleepovers sharing twin beds that we could pretend sharing your double bed was exactly the same as it had always been.

It wasn't.

The next day, you held my hand again at the MoMA. You showed me all your favorite pieces and told me everything about them, everything they meant to you. I kept getting distracted by dirty looks tour guides were sending your way as you upstaged them with half hour long spiels about artists and symbolism and why they used lavender instead of plum right here but not over there. I hadn't seen you this genuinely excited about anything since we went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show almost a decade earlier. Honestly, it was breathtaking.

We had dinner with my uncle that night and most of it was spent with you two talking about everything I needed to see. By dessert, you were already making plans about what time you had to pick me up the Tuesday after next so we could go to the underground play your art school friend was directing, figuring out what time the show would be over by to decide if I should just stay at your place again afterwards.

My uncle ended up being the one that suggested I stay with you indefinitely, if it wasn't too much of an imposition, since he couldn't get time off work and you seemed so keen to show me around the city. After all, he'd said, it seemed I'd practically be living with you anyway. I couldn't help smiling, and you'd blushed a little and said it would make planning touristy adventures easier.

(We kept the plan from my mom though, because she would've gotten mad at my uncle for not making time for me and then would've tried to make me come home early.)

The three of us toured the whole city my first Saturday there, armed with a backpack full of extra t-shirts to give the illusion of taking pictures in front of tourist spots on many different days. You were appointed head of photography and when I was going through the pictures later, to see which would be to send to my mom, I found other photos you'd taken in secret, snapped while I was laughing at something with my uncle or staring in awe at some statue scattered throughout the city.

Those first few weeks, you took me everywhere you could think of, the art district, the music scene, the garment district, anywhere with lots of colors and artistic expression. It took a full week of begging before you finally quit grumbling about commercialism destroying the world and took me to Times Square.


	2. August

Even after only a month, we'd settled into the routine of life together. We'd go out to dinner at restaurants where the waitresses knew our orders by heart, and we'd spend hours talking in our favorite coffee shop, the one I'd found nestled in between a record store and a bookshop on West 14th.

I'd fall asleep on the couch, curled around familiar books I'd read dozens of times before, and I'd always wake up in bed, with my book on the table and you curled around me. You'd go on binges, painting until you were almost falling asleep on your feet, dripping brush clutched loosely between your fingers and threatening to ruin everything until I'd replace it with a cup of (decaf) coffee. I'd kiss the tiny beauty mark on your cheek and hold you close, counting in the dark the spots of colorful paint smudged into your skin, and we'd sit on the floor together until you managed to nod off in my arms under the soft light of sunrise.

One morning just before Labor day, you slid open the window and crawled up to sit on the sill. I shivered as a breeze blew into the room and burrowed deeper into the tangle of sheets to hide from the chill of unseasonably autumny air. You hunched your shoulders against the soft wind and as you tried to light a cigarette. You grinned and blew smoke down at me, and I couldn't help smiling.

I asked if you wanted to do anything for the day. You took one last long drag of your cigarette, shrugging, and stubbed it out on the windowsill, next to all the other burn marks from all the other cancer sticks. You slid back down onto the bed and the sounds of the city drifted in through the window. You put your arms around my waist and pulled my closer for kisses that tasted like nicotine.

We barely got out of bed for the rest of the day, talking about novels, and reading each other comic books, and singing along too loud to the radio. After hours and hours, you finally remembered that there was a gallery opening down in SoHo, and we'd left in a hurry, hair messy and beanies askew as the streetlights flickered on.


	3. September

September came as suddenly and subtly as a thief in the night, stealing the green from the trees in Central Park and the days we had left together.

It was summer's last hurrah the day I walked into the apartment and called sarcastically, "Honey, I'm home," like usual. You didn't answer as I put the groceries away, so I went searching for you.

I found you in front of the bathroom mirror, trying your damnedest to tame your bangs. You were all dressed up, and I leaned against the doorframe with a smile. "Well, don't you look spiffy. What's the occasion?"

Your reflection smiled at me, and you replied, "I've got a date."

"Oh, really?" I asked, thinking you were kidding. "With who?"

You walked past me back into the bedroom to get your jacket from the closet and I followed as you said, "Sam. You know, from the coffee shop."

My grin faltered and I asked, "Wait, you're serious?"

You shrugged into your jacket.

I felt myself get a little paler and my stomach twisted in knots. "But, we..." I started.

"We what?" you asked, like you had absolutely no idea.

I couldn't believe you, standing there all calm, if a little confused, while I was about to be sick. I wanted to tell you but didn't know how to say it. Instead, I barely forced out, "We're, ya'know... C'mon, how can you not  _know?"_

And your eyes went sort of wide, like this was the last thing you'd expected to hear. You stammered for a second, before you asked, "We're... We're  _not._ Are we?"

Suddenly, I was furious. How could you not know what we were? You, of all people, should've been the one who knew. I was nearly shouting when I answered, "Well, I thought so, but apparently you don't give a damn."

"What does it even matter?" you yelled back. "You'll be gone soon anyway!"

And then everything had just stopped. We stared at each other, both realizing what you had said. The one thing neither of us had allowed ourselves to admit. You turned away and I sank down to sit on the edge of the bed. Your voice was soft again, small as you repeated, "You'll be gone."

You opened the window and lit a cigarette. I shivered, even though the breeze that blew in was warm and carried along tendrils of your smoke. You stared out the window, not even smoking anymore, just watching the cigarette burn itself down to the filter and then flicking the butt out onto the ledge.

You looked at me over your shoulder, avoiding my eyes, and then scooped up your phone and retreated back to the bathroom. I could hear you faking a cough, and when you came back out you simply said, "I cancelled with Sam."

We barely spoke for the rest of the night, and for the rest of the week all conversations were trivial and short-lived. On my last night, you began stiffly, "Tomorrow-"

"Don't," I interrupted. I moved closer to you. "Please, don't. Just... Let's just have tonight together. Okay?"

"Okay," you whispered. Your arms wound tight around my waist and you squeezed me closer. "Tonight."

I buried my face in your neck and swallowed the lump in my throat.

The next morning, we woke up to the shrill sounds of the alarm clock you never used. I never wanted to get out of that bed with you. But I had a train to catch, a dorm to move into, a life to get on with.

The morning was this strange combination of uncomfortable and mournful. It felt kind of like the death of an acquaintance; it was hard to tell what felt worse: the grief, or the guilty feeling that you should be more torn up about it. There was a heavy silence in the apartment that both of us wanted to end and neither of us knew how to break.

You sprung for a cab instead of the subway, like it was some elaborate send-off, and we sat on opposite sides, watching the city pass by out the windows. Your hand was so close to mine on the seat that I would have barely needed to move to be holding it. I clenched my fists stiffly in my lap instead.

The train station was hell. My duffle bag felt too huge on my back and I kept getting the nagging sense that I was forgetting something back in your apartment, even though I'd packed and repacked four times in the past two days. We were both staring at our shoes a little too much. There were empty promises to keep in touch, like we had just been roommates instead of... instead of whatever we were. The loose embrace made me feel like dying as the sound of the train pulling up thundered across the platform and you mumbled a soft goodbye.

When I boarded the train, I looked for you out the window, but I couldn't find you. I told myself that you hadn't run off just yet, that the view from this angle was just wrong. Until I was all the way back on Jersey soil, part of me was hoping that it would be like some romantic film and you would just appear at the other end of the train car. When I finally accepted that you weren't going to show up, I huddled deep inside the sweatshirt the autumn day was still just a little too warm for and tried to stop thinking.

At the train station, I was alone in the crowd again. I thought back to July, and for a moment everything inside me twisted with hope and expectation to see you. You could've taken a cab over and beaten me there. Or maybe you had been on the train the whole time, just hadn't said anything.

I waited in that station, first for two minutes, then for ten, with that hope of seeing you with that adorable little sign with my name on it eating away at me. But then that hope faded, and a sick feeling I couldn't quite identify slowly wormed its way into my heart instead. As I caught the bus that would take me home, or at least wherever home used to be, I imagined I'd get there and find a voicemail you'd left just after I'd gotten on the train. Or that you would call then. Or soon. Just so long as I heard from you again.

A part of me never wanted to hear from you again.

After all, it was only for the summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this for a creative writing class in high school (almost 6 years ago, goddamn) but I still kind of float in this AU from time to time, and I figured it was about time it saw the light of day.  
> It was originally inspired by the song "Bulletproof Weeks" by Matt Nathanson.


End file.
